emies
and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune."

The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.

"Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he
declare himself our enemy, so much the better!"

Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.

"For the good of our sacred order, you understand," he added, breathing
with difficulty; "I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulations
of friends; besides, those are bought."

"Your reverence believes that?"

The old man looked at him sadly.

"Remember this well," he went on, catching his breath; "our power lasts
as long as it's believed in. If we're attacked, the Government reasons:
'They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty:
therefore we must support them!'"

"But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should
come to covet what we have amassed--if there should be a man hardy
enough----"

"Ah! then beware!"

Both were silent.

"And too," the sick man continued, "we have need of attack to show
us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceives
us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we
become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will no
longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential
cords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longer
convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we're working our own
destruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I've
combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I
fear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy."

"We shall always have our lands."

"But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of
others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increase
the burdens we've already laid on their shoulders."

"So your reverence believes that the revenues----"

"Talk no more of money," interrupted the old man with aversion. "You
say the lieutenant threatened Father Damaso?"

"Yes, Father," replied Sibyla, half smiling; "but this morning he
told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it must
have been the same with Brother Damaso. 'And your threat?' I asked
jestingly. 'Father,' said he, 'I know how to keep my word when it
doesn't smirch my honor; I was never an informer--and that's why I
am only a lieutenant.'"

Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to